Connecting with God through poetic articulations of lived, embodied experience–engaging texts from the Revised Common Lectionary for Christian churches, other biblical and spiritual texts, and evocations of the divine in rituals and other public events–always accepting lived reality as a primary source of divine revelation and mystery.

Holy Feet, Jesus!

Feet, the bottom of the human body, dirty, calloused, twisted, arthritic, gnarled, even hard, but some are soft with pretty nails painted, massaged with oil sweet scented or maybe not, smelly sweaty feet common— all sorts and conditions of human worldly feet. Who knows about Peter’s feet, a disciple’s feet, and the other feet in that upper room when Jesus took off his outer robe revealing perhaps more of himself than normal among the band of holy land walkers who have shared so much already. Now here is something very strange: the rabbi wants to wash our dirty feet as he has already invited us to share our dirty linen—the same Jesus who is ready to receive and wash our feet and linen today—even Peter’s, who, of course, objects as he often does. Is there ever a time when there is not at least one Peter in every group , the long ago one offended by the very idea of his Lord stooping to wash feet, like today’s recoiling at showing the imperfection of feet, even more at being asked to wash others’. How far we have fallen back, afraid of showingin faith just our feet, not our private parts, to one another in a sacred act of service, not to mention dipping hands into warm water to bathe tired feet— are not feet nearly always tired, they carry us wherever we go and if we have not feet we must ride on chair or human back or hop with crutches, feet efficiently carrying us wherever we want to go—these are feet of our neighbors, fellow congregants, feet which trod on the same church floor as ours, not the feet of strangers but fellow worshippers, like us, Friends of Jesus who says love one another, even your dirty, smelly, calloused, hard or soft, ugly or pretty feet. If we cannot wash these feet, how can we care for, let alone love, any others?

@Robin Gorsline 2016 lectionarypoetics.org Please use the credit line above when publishing this poem in any form

About this poem . . .As a pastor who loves the service of foot washing, not because I have a foot fetish but because it makes Jesus so clear, I was often amazed by parishioners who drew back, almost in horror, at the idea of exposing their feet or touching any others. It was a recurring annual moment when I understood how thorough has been the domestication of Jesus within the church.